


Too Much Like Lyrium

by stardropdream



Series: Garrison in Thedas [3]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 10:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6326293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a kind of simplicity in being out here with his brothers – for they are brothers now, no matter where they came from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much Like Lyrium

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sammywhatammy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammywhatammy/gifts).



> Birthday fic for Sammy! Sorry it's so short, but happy birthday all the same. u_u ♥

Athos is fiddling with the locket again when Porthos and d’Artagnan join him by the fire. Aramis is still collecting firewood to stock them through the night, keeping the fire going so it’s hot enough but not too bright to attract unwanted attention. Athos fiddles a bit, not flipping open the locket, just letting it move around his hands. He’s staring into the fire, his mind lost in thought – his thumb tracing over the curve of the vial, the hourglass shape full of blood that no longer glows. In hindsight of the order, Athos can recognize the irony of using such methods to track down someone who—

Well. No sense on lingering on what’s gone. On who’s dead and gone. 

Aramis comes stumbling back, piles of wood tumbling from his arms and dropping with a heavy thud by Porthos’ boot. There’s the shift of chain medal, the flash of the griffon symbol on his chest-plate, before Aramis takes his place beside Porthos, bumps his shoulder gently, and says, “So where are we heading tomorrow?” 

“Towards the border,” Athos says, dropping the locket and looking off into the night. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust against the fire. They’re alone, out on the coast. He can hear the distant waves but not much else. No movement of animals, always a bad sign. But no hissing or murmurings of darkspawn, and certainly none of them have felt the chilling calm of the blight stirring inside of themselves, alerting them to the presence. Seems they’re in for a quiet night. 

Athos desperately wishes there was some wine to drink down. They’ve long since run out and haven’t had the time or means to resupply for non-necessities. Porthos is pretty good at collecting herbs enough to brew a weak tea, but it’s a poor, poor substitute. 

They spend their evening gathering stock. Aramis gets the wood pile going when he isn’t busy re-sharpening his arrowheads. Porthos catches the look in Athos’ eye and does indeed brew him some of the weak tea, but soon retires to his great axe, using his worn and weary whetstone to make it shimmer again. 

“You need to loosen that,” d’Artagnan says and tugs at one of Athos’ buckles. “We’re in for the night. Nothing’s coming.”

Athos does not startle but he’s sometimes surprised d’Artagnan isn’t trained in some kind of stealth, with the way he can sneak up into Athos’ defenses when he’s not paying attention. Before Athos can lift his own hands, d’Artagnan undoes the clasps of his breastplate, letting it fall away. He gives Aramis and Porthos sharp looks and the two exchange looks, shrug, and start undressing their gauntlets and heavier armor. 

There’s a kind of simplicity in being out here with his brothers – for they are brothers now, no matter where they came from. None of them have said anything to him, in the year they’ve been traveling together. None of them have noticed the lyrium he tries to sneak when no one else is looking, if only to stave off the crunch of his thoughts unfraying, betraying. He swallows down thick. Better they believe him a mere alcoholic – at least such a vice, such an addiction, is easier dismissed in the face of the blighted beings they fight. 

But it’s better this way. They do not ask Athos where he’s coming from, why he holds and brandishes his shield in a certain way, certainly different from the way d’Artagnan fights with his own. But it’s better this way, just as they do not ask Aramis why he follows the news of the Empress with such intensity, why Porthos, human for all he seems, still makes a point of checking alienages whenever they pass through busier cities, why they do not ask d’Artagnan why he startles whenever a crow calls out from the branches above them. 

Or maybe it’d be better if they did know everything of each other. Perhaps it is an isolation that Athos takes on by himself. He hears Porthos and Aramis murmuring to one another in the night, quiet and hushed so that Athos cannot pick up on the words they share to each other. He knows the way d’Artagnan looks at him, as if imploring him to share what it is he keeps thinking on. But they can’t know. No, it is better this way. 

Being a Grey Warden is not a gift. It is not mercy. That they should all have things they’re running away from in their past – that is another thing entirely. 

They lie out side by side, beneath the tent Porthos pitched before the sun sank. Athos hates being in the middle and yet the three insist on it, and he finds himself sandwiched up between d’Artagnan and Aramis. Porthos takes first watch, sipping at the weak tea Athos hadn’t finished and offers them a sloppy smile. 

“I’ll let the fire die down a bit,” Porthos says. 

“Wake me in a few hours,” Aramis tells him, already the hint of a scold halfway to his words – there have been many times when Porthos has just let them all sleep through the night and taken the entire watch himself. Some form of mercy that they all soon regret the next day when inevitably Porthos takes a sword to the back and needs to get stitched out, or just passes out halfway up a bluff. 

“Yeah, I know,” Porthos says, waves them away, and retreats beyond the circle of light, cast in shadow. 

Athos stares up at the canvas of their tent, can’t see the stars. His hand goes to the locket around his neck. Tugs. Holds it tight. Pretends he feels the pulse of blood against his palm, that it isn’t long since stagnant and dead.

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](http://stardropdream.tumblr.com/), as always.


End file.
